The present invention relates to a fluid distributor means. A more specific aspect of the present invention relates to a vessel having a fluid distributor means adapted to distribute a fluid on the surface of a body of material disposed in the vessel.
In numerous industrial operations, it is desired to distribute a fluid over the surface of a confined body of material. For example, in the refining of oil, both in a conventional refinery and in a system for rerefining used oils, it is often desired to pass the oil through a body of clay to improve color and other properties of the oil. In such cases, the oil is distributed over the surface of the body of clay so as to trickle or flow downwardly through the body of clay and be removed from the bottom of the treating vessel. In conventional practice, a spray head or spray nozzle is adapted to discharge the oil as a diverging cone. However, numerous problems are involved in such distribution means, for example, such spray heads or nozzles are prone to plug easily, particularly with heavy fluids, such as heavy oils or oils which may contain suspended particles. Such spray heads and nozzles, particularly those adapted for use with heavy fluids, are also relatively expensive. While flow through such spray heads and nozzles can be improved to some extent by preheating the heavy fluid to make it less viscous, or by utilizing air or steam to assist distribution of the fluid by the nozzle, such practices involve additional costs for preheating the fluid, added expense of the fluid assist nozzles, added cost of the assist air or steam and, in many cases, contamination of reactants, treating agents or products by the assist air or steam. Further, the use of such spray heads or nozzles limits the height of the body of treating material which can be disposed in the vessel, to the extent that the top of the treating material must be disposed at a height such that the base of the cone-shaped spray extends over the entire surface of the body of treating material. It is also desirable in similar operations to thus treat a two-phase, liquid-gas by spraying the same over the surface of a bed of treating material. For example, in oil refining and rerefining operations, it is often desirable to hydrotreat the oil by spraying a mixture of oil and hydrogen over the surface of a body of catalytic material so as to permit the oil to pass downwardly through the body of catalytic material and be removed from the bottom of the vessel. In addition to the problems previously mentioned, such an operation involves the additional problem of disengaging the gas and the liquid phases so that two-phase flow problems through the body of catalytic material do not occur. Spray heads and spray nozzles heretofore utilized are not designed to solve this problem.